The present invention relates to the field of bird feeders.
A thistle seed small bird feeder is needed in the marketplace that needs no assembly upon purchase, can be readily kept clean, is easy to refill, does not waste seed, and most importantly, that provides simultaneous dramatic viewing and display of a substantial number of small birds such as finches.
The market place is filled with hype, and feed and feeders, generally offered for sale, trap the unwary uninformed aviculturist into believing that little birds will feed next to larger birds, that birds love cracked corn, artificially colored seeds make them more desirable, that mixing different varieties of seeds will attract lots of different birds, that a feeding station with three separate feeding compartments for different offerings of seed in each will actually attract many birds. My novel small bird feeder helps to eliminate many of the drawbacks and disadvantages of prior art bird feeders.
Thistle (Guizotia Abyssinica-niger seed) is a very tiny elongated tear drop shaped oil seed. I have experimented with dispensing of this type of seed during small bird feeding. As such, it is a difficult seed to dispense from a feeder without birds wasting it. This is the type of seed one uses to attract small birds commonly classified as finches. Most thistle feeders in use are constructed of plastic, metal or combinations of both. There are cheesecloth type seed containing bags that are flimsy, (available to view on line at www.samsclub.com under the name of xe2x80x9cThistle Sockxe2x80x9d) become unsanitary and filthy, and have no easy access to discreet feeding stations displaced from one another to accommodate individual birds. The birds find it difficult to pull the seed through the bag, and their beaks quickly make holes through the material. The bags are short lived, and are designed as a cheap disposable feeders that become stained, discolored and maimed in a short period of time requiring replacement.
Bird feeders in general dispensing sunflower and mixed seed are shaped like houses, silos, the Empire State building, barns etc. These feeders that I have handled are generally awkward to use, with some or all of the following undesirable attributes: annoying to refill, discolor, difficult if not impossible to clean thoroughly, deteriorate by becoming cloudy, crack, split, fasteners rust, will give you welts or cuts on your head if you forget they are there and walk into them, and need assembly after purchase. Repeated pounding of beaks enlarges the small feed openings of some feeding stations, and most if not all are deficient in fully displaying and feeding their intended audience.
Importantly, birds being territorial by nature spend more time quibbling over a station than actually using it. This restricts the number of birds that may be viewed at one time for owners of birdfeeders that have conventional horizontal perches adjacent feeding orifices, one bird per perch at the most, in contrast with my novel small bird feeder that eliminates seed waste while encouraging and enabling numerous finches to feed together, without competing for particular perches.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,740,758 issued to Damm discloses a planar mesh screen having apertures of between 0.055 and 0.065 inches, that are used to accommodate the claws of birds to provide a perching area, and also to allegedly provide feeding openings for supplying thistle to finches. However, I have determined through experimentation, that these feeding openings are too small to readily enable satisfactory feeding and display of finches, in contrast with my xe2x80x9cThistle Sackxe2x80x9d feeder that has far larger, spaced apart porthole-like feeding openings, aside from apertures within the mesh. If seed retrieval is too difficult, the birds will not remain at the feeder to feed and be displayed.
A thistle seed bird feeder is provided for attracting, and enabling simultaneous viewing of a substantial number of small birds such as finches, all feeding together to yield an aesthetically pleasing xe2x80x9cplayground effect.xe2x80x9d Finches love the attributes of my novel small bird feeder, and bird lovers enjoy viewing interaction of mated pairs and their young. Small birds feeding from my feeder are noticeably more relaxed and spend more time on the feeder for viewing. Surprisingly, chickadees will eat the thistle in my feeder when no other birds are present, and I have never heard of chickadees eating thistle, and I have been in the pet business for many years. My novel xe2x80x9cThistle Sackxe2x80x9d small bird feeder helps to eliminate many of the drawbacks and disadvantages of prior art bird feeders mentioned herein.
The feeder employs a flexible plastic mesh thistle seed containing sack having its length and width greater than its depth, to provide a broad roomy substantially planar perching surface for bird display. The seed containing sack has small openings in its walls of mesh, configured to enable perching of small birds thereon during feeding, together with several substantially separated discrete feeding apertures provided by eyelets or grommets in central sack portions, having diameters of about 0.145-0.165 inches, each feeding aperture being considerably larger than the bird supporting mesh openings. These apertures are small enough to prevent substantial waste of thistle seed during feeding and large enough to make it easy for the birds to feed, to thus maintain their presence. An opening is formed within an upper portion of the flexible mesh thistle seed containing sack for inserting seed therein, and a closure member is seated over the opening, providing easy access for refilling of seed. The closure member remains seated upon the top of the sack by force of gravity, and yet can be readily manually displaced upwardly for gaining access to the sack. The closure member makes the sack easy to hold and has the dual function of acting as a bird supporting perch.
The bird feeder is simple in construction, easy to mail, needs no assembly upon purchase, can be readily kept clean, is easy to refill, does not waste seed, and most importantly, provides simultaneous viewing and display of a substantial number of small birds such as finches. The preferred black color greatly enhances the color of the display. The open mesh weave allows the sack to be washed by rain and offers large amounts of thistle for each unit of surface area. As the feeder is predominately flat, it is easy and cheap to mail. The mesh openings permit viewing of the amount of seed remaining and the flexible mesh body is quite rigid to provide good support for the birds.